"No match in the criminal records. No match in the new-resident records."
At the mechanical soldier's coercive voice, I met its eyes squarely.
At that, the expressions of the people around us grew even grimmer.
Because they all knew the disasters that had followed when someone rashly defied a mechanical soldier.
But not this time, at least.
"Beep-beep. Are you a traveler from outside the city?"
"And if I am?"
"Beep-beep. I apologize for my rudeness, honored visitor. Please enjoy your time in the happy city of Adeban."
The mechanical soldiers occupying Adeban held great power under the command of the Iron Factory.
So the mechanical soldiers were set up to watch Adeban's residents and were even permitted to use violence for the sake of their duties.
But there were a few beings over whom they couldn't exercise that power.
One of them was outsiders from beyond the city.
To avoid outside interference, it outwardly wore the mask of a company devoted to Adeban's development.
So it was thoroughly determined not to show the reality to outsiders entering the city, and the mechanical soldier's behavior a moment ago was also meant to hide that reality.
"Beep-beep. At your earliest convenience, please visit the checkpoint at the city entrance and wear an outsider's badge."
With that, the mechanical soldier soon vanished from the area.
'Luckily, it isn't dragging me off for not having a badge.'
Honestly, I'd thought they might take action against anyone without a badge, outsider or resident.
But then, you'd think they'd find it stranger that an outsider without a badge had gotten into the city.
From their point of view, someone like that would be the most threatening.
It was lucky it was just a mechanical soldier following a simple program; if it had been someone like Victor, things might have been different.
Anyway, let's just be thankful I got through it safely this time.
"Uncle, are you okay?"
It hadn't happened because I'd done anything wrong in the first place; it was because of that kid, though.
"Yeah. Don't worry about it."
I'll let it slide just this once.
But if he pulls this again, there'll be no mercy then.
"Uncle's going to head back first. You do the rest of the deliveries by yourself. You can handle that, right?"
"Uh.... The rest is kind of heavy, though...."
"You do this all the time anyway, so do your best. I'm off."
I knew it. I've got no talent for looking after kids.
***
"...So that's how Jayden started coming to my repair shop every day."
"So you're playing babysitter for him, Miss Edith."
"Well, I don't exactly have a talent for looking after kids."
Edith made a face that said that couldn't be true.
In my head was the story of what came after the Adeban episode ended.
And I knew what became of Edith, too.
"Let's wait here. According to the intel, they'll show up over there soon."
Late at night, Edith pointed from the top of a hill to the road below.
For the cargo-raid mission, Edith and I had arrived ahead of time on the road the cargo would take.
"Miss Edith, so we're handling this mission with just the two of us? What about the other comrades?"
In the original Resistance quests, apart from infiltration missions and the like, you always went with several Resistance agents.
But the only ones deployed on this mission were Edith and me.
"The other comrades are running a joint operation near the factory. After that, they'll hurry over here and help with our mission. Our goal is to pin the enemy down until they arrive."
Something was off. Even for a Resistance that normally operated as an elite few, there was no way they'd leave Edith alone on a mission like this.
Besides, her role wasn't fighting on the front line; her position was covering allies from the rear as a sniper.
That meant if I hadn't offered to help her, she'd have had to pull off this mission alone.
"Still, since you offered to help me, Enon, they got an extra agent over there, which is a relief. It's a joint operation, but their job is more important."
Wait, they were that short on people?
"How many Resistance agents are there right now, by any chance?"
"Only five who can fight, including me."
Five meant it was just the key agents.
In the original game, even excluding the key Resistance NPCs, there'd been quite a few other agents.
"A lot of our agents got hurt or captured while we were resisting the factory. So we're short on people, and we're fighting with our gums since we've lost our teeth."
"Then the agents out on this mission are all that's left of the Resistance."
"That's right. The only reason my identity and the other remaining agents' haven't been discovered yet is because they've kept our secrets. So we need to hurry up and complete our mission all the more."
So that was it.
Originally, the one who helped the Resistance with its missions in the game was the game's protagonist.
Thanks to the protagonist's exploits, the Resistance got the chance to drive out the Iron Factory, and in the end, Adeban regained its peace.
Because the protagonist made up for the shortage of Resistance agents.
In other words, paradoxically, it also meant that without the protagonist's help, the Resistance, with only a tiny handful of people left, couldn't bring down the Iron Factory.
'Where on earth is that protagonist, and what are they doing?'
I got angry at the protagonist for no good reason, not knowing where they were.
At a protagonist I'd never once seen in person, no less.
'Wrapping up the quest comes first.'
I pulled my briefly agitated feelings together.
We'd already strayed far from the storyline I knew, but there was still hope.
In the game, too, the Resistance members who did most of the work were all NPC characters.
If they, the most skilled of the Resistance, were alive, it wasn't completely impossible.
"All right, understood. Let's hold out until our comrades get here."
"Mr. Enon, I'll say it again, but don't run now, even if you want to. Though I'd understand if you did...."
"That won't happen."
Honestly, I was scared.
It was a quest I'd cleared hundreds of times, but now it was real.
It was only natural to be nervous.
But I was now a full-fledged Resistance agent cooperating with them.
If I fought with the same resolve as they did, the fear would ease.
'I don't want to see the characters I fought alongside in the game die.'
Above all, an inexplicable exhilaration was moving my body.
"There. They're coming."
The moment Edith finished speaking, a cargo wagon appeared from across the road.
Around it, as expected, several mechanical soldiers were moving along as escorts.
"I'll snipe them from a distance, so you stop the soldiers that get close with your pulse gun, Mr. Enon. If by any chance you fail to stop them, avoid a head-on fight if you can. You brought the sword I gave you, right?"
I nodded at her question.
At my waist, besides the pulse gun I'd gotten earlier, was a blade Edith had given me.
[Ordinary Iron Sword]
It really was just a sword stamped with Adeban's lettering, exactly as the name said, but funnily enough, the system showed its name.
What that meant wasn't very complicated.
It meant this sword could be attached to my body too.
I had no idea what conditions made something attachable or not, but it was no loss.
Right now I didn't even have ordinary swordsmanship.
So it'd be easier to have it attached to my arm itself than to hold it in my hand.
So as not to be spotted by the mechanical soldiers, I put some distance between Edith and me and took up a position.
'She said our Resistance allies would get here within 10 minutes at least.'
Honestly, the odds of just the two of us buying that much time were slim.
On top of that, there were six mechanical soldiers assigned to the cargo wagon.
In game terms, it was like several epic monsters traveling in a pack.
Even one of them took plenty of effort to deal with, and there were that many of them.
If they were regular mechanical soldiers, maybe.
These were fully armed.
But even things like those were by no means invincible.
Soon, once they'd fully entered the road, Edith got ready to give the signal from afar.
[Attaching the High-Performance Magic Pulse Gun.]
And before long, she lowered the hand she'd been holding up.
BANG!
The bullet Edith fired hit the joint of the cargo wagon's wheel dead-on.
Then the wagon carrying the cargo lurched and came to a stop right there.
In the sudden situation, the mechanical soldiers couldn't pinpoint where the gunshot had come from.
I quietly watched the situation from the opposite side.
If this were a game, I'd have gone head-to-head with them right away, but not this time.
This wasn't the inside of a game but a real battlefield.
Above all, this was a time when teamwork between comrades mattered.
BANG!
While the mechanical soldiers were still reeling, Edith sniped their heads with her sniper rifle.
[Weakness Detection is active.]
The spots Edith sniped were precisely the weak points painted red.
With two mechanical soldiers half incapacitated, the other soldiers around them seemed to sense Edith's position and took up arms.
On cue, Edith gave me the signal.
As if I'd been waiting, I aimed my right arm, fitted with the pulse gun, at the mechanical soldiers.
[Injecting mana into the High-Performance Magic Pulse Gun.]
Normally it would be an absurd distance for a pulse gun's range, but it was different now that it had been enhanced by my skill.
FWOOM!
With a crisp sound, a blue wave burst from the pulse gun.
Thanks to the enhancement, both its range and firepower had increased dramatically.
The mechanical soldier hit by the wave lost its balance and collapsed on the spot.
I could see it had not only disabled its system but dealt direct damage too.
We'd disabled half the mechanical soldiers in an instant, but three mechanical soldiers still remained.
The mechanical soldiers aimed the gun barrels on their arms in the direction the attacks had come from.
BANG-BANG-BANG—!
At the hail of bullets sweeping the area, I hurriedly hid behind a tree.
Bullets lodged everywhere, and shrapnel flew and swept the surroundings.
When the hail of bullets ended, Edith and I changed positions and counterattacked again.
BANG!
True to Edith's outstanding marksmanship, her bullet lodged in one of their heads.
With ordinary bullets, it would have been impossible, but all her weapons were custom-made.
Where her bullet passed, faint magic lingered, and it made a hole in the mechanical soldier's head.
'At this rate, the two of us could take care of all of them.'
It wasn't a very realistic idea, but it wasn't impossible.
I immediately made up my mind and shouted to Edith, who was waiting for her sniper rifle to reload.
"Let's use this chance to wipe them all out, just the two of us."
"That's impossible. Our firepower isn't anywhere near enough."
"Looking at your weapon just now, Miss Edith, I think it's plenty. I'll set the table, so you finish them off."
"My sniper rifle has a long delay after each shot. It'll be hard to cover you well enough, Mr. Enon."
"That's exactly my point."
"So I'm saying it's too much for you alone, Mr. Enon—"
"Then let's begin."
I quickly put distance between Edith and me and started working the pulse gun.
A pulse gun basically radiated outward, with its range widening the farther it got from where it was fired.
The farther the distance, the weaker the power, but its effect itself carried over intact.
FWOOM!
When I opened some distance and fired the pulse gun, a wide-area attack swept over the mechanical soldiers once.
At almost the same moment, a grenade Edith threw set off an explosion among the mechanical soldiers.
"Now!"
I moved on her signal.
[The Mana Core is activating.]
[Physical abilities are activating.]
[Agility stat increases by 5.]
Taking advantage of the chaos, I jumped down the hill and quickly closed the distance before the mechanical soldiers noticed.
[Weakness Detection is active.]
[Attaching the Ordinary Iron Sword to the left arm.]
[Coating the Ordinary Iron Sword with magic.]
"Hup!"
I thrust the sword with all my strength into the joint painted red.
It had already been hit once by the pulse gun, so its Durability was weakened.
THUNK!
The sword pierced straight through the gap between the steel plates.
When I twisted the sword and pulled it out to the side, the mechanical soldier crumbled where it stood.
Now four mechanical soldiers remained.
I then ran toward the next mechanical soldier.
After I'd dealt with one, the mechanical soldiers were already regaining their fighting strength.
The mechanical soldier right beside me was already turning its gun barrel toward me.
[The Mana Core is activating powerfully.]
I drew up my mana and spread a mana veil around me.
It was based on my experience in the first fight with the Parts Amalgam.
RAT-TAT-TAT!
I heard the loud report of gunfire, but the bullets were blocked cleanly by the mana veil.
Taking that opening, I circled to the side opposite the gun barrel and aimed the pulse gun at the thing.
BOOM!
Then the mechanical soldier's upper body crumpled, electric current ran around its body, and it shut down on the spot.
It was power an ordinary pulse gun could never have produced.
[The Mana Core imprints your application of mana.]
[You have learned the skill Magic Barrier.]
[You have learned the skill Weapon Form Conversion.]
I hadn't known I could learn skills on my own instead of only getting them as rewards.
The more I saw of my abilities, the more impressive they were.
BANG!
It was the sound of Edith's sniper rifle.
When I looked back, a mechanical soldier with its head shot through lay collapsed on the ground.
Now there was one mechanical soldier left.
Even that one was half disabled, having taken a direct hit from the grenade.
When I thrust the sword straight into its weak point, the thing crumbled helplessly where it stood.
"Huu."
There were no mechanical soldiers left conscious around us.
It had been a highly risky call, but luckily we'd succeeded in taking out every last one of them.
[The Mana Core begins its activity.]
In contrast to me, now relaxed, the Mana Core, its interest piqued, began to react.
[The Mana Core has detected a mechanical model that can be mimicked.]
[Mimicable Mechanical Model – Iron Factory Mechanical Soldier]
Now this looks useful too, huh?